Dion Jordan and the Dolphins’ 10 biggest NFL draft busts of all time

Select an all-time great player in the NFL draft and someday the results can end up in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

With a bust.

Ironic, then, that if you make an all-time stinker of a pick, fans will forever let you know you selected … a bust.

There hasn’t been a football team yet that has avoided such pitfalls, and as Dolfans are painfully aware, Miami’s history is checkered with plenty such errors. Here, then, is our Draft Hall of Shame (parental discretion advised).

1. DE Dion Jordan, Oregon (1st round, 2013): When you draft a guy third overall, is it too much to ask for him to have more career sacks than drug suspensions? With three career sacks and the past two seasons down the drain because he was more interested in stuff other than football, Jordan has accomplished one thing in his Dolphins career: He managed to supplant another defensive end from this lofty spot after a 29-year run before he was released on Friday.

Why didn’t they take … ? BYU DE Ezekiel Ansah. Or why didn’t they trade up in the first place?

Three seasons later, when Kumerow’s Dolphins career had ended, that headline could have been resurrected. Kumerow never started a single game in his NFL career.

“My favorite play is getting a blind-side shot at a quarterback,” Kumerow said when he was selected. “There’s no better feeling in the world.”

How did he know? His Dolphins career produced five sacks and just 25 tackles. That’s a steep price for the 16th overall pick, but it gets worse: The Dolphins were so high on Kumerow they rejected a trade-down with the Bears that would have given them an extra second-round selection.

3. CB Jamar Fletcher, Wisconsin (1st round, 2001): Fletcher makes this list in part through circumstances beyond his control. The Dolphins had a simple choice (or so fans thought) with the 26th pick. Hand in a card that says, “QB Drew Brees, Purdue,” and know that whatever you do the rest of the weekend, you’ve done good, especially when you so badly need a successor to Dan Marino.

The result?

Fletcher: Three seasons, six starts, two interceptions.

Brees: Super Bowl winner, likely bound for the Hall of Fame, icon in New Orleans.

“I’m not going to say he’s a killer tackler” was the ringing endorsement of Fletcher by Dolphins personnel man Rick Spielman.

5. and 6. LB Jackie Shipp, Oklahoma (1st round, 1984) and LB Jay Brophy, Miami (2nd round, 1984): The Dolphins clearly were on the right track offensively. If they could just stop someone, they’d be on the road to championships, right?

So Don Shula invested two of the draft’s first 53 picks on linebackers who made no one forget A.J. Duhe. Both Shipp and Brophy produced one sack in a Dolphins uniform, and Miami consistently ranked in the bottom third of the NFL in run defense with this duo. Brophy did have injury problems, but the Shipp selection stings even more because Miami traded up with Buffalo and gave up two No. 3s to pick him.

“We feel like we’ve gone a long way toward filling the needs we had at linebacker,” Shula said.

7. DE Don Reese, Jackson State (1st round, 1974): The easiest way to make this list is a lack of production on the field. Reese accomplished that (if that’s the right word), but he’s largely here by shaming the organization off the field.

Reese and DT Randy Crowder, Miami’s sixth-round pick that year, were nailed by police trying to traffic drugs, leading to a 1982 Sports Illustrated cover piece written by Reese whose headline says it all: “I’m Not Worth a Damn.”

Dolphins punt returner Ted Ginn, Jr. fumbles before getting hit by Titans #30 Jason McCourty in the first quarter in a game against Tennessee on Dec. 20, 2009. (Allen Eyestone/The Palm Beach Post)

8. WR Ted Ginn, Miami (1st round, 2007): No, his stats aren’t terrible. But given that he was the ninth overall pick, and given the great speed broadcasters love to point out, is it unreasonable to think this guy could be so much more than he is, if he’d just stay in bounds once in a while?

“Ted Ginn and his family will give us everything they’ve got,’’ coach Cam Cameron infamously told booing Dolfans at the team’s draft party.

Ginn and his family lasted three seasons with the Dolphins. Ted scored on three returns.

That’s the only pleasant thing we can say about this draft class. Epitomizing this group is that the Dolphins exercised their fifth-round selection in the supplemental draft to select DT Manny Wright, remembered as the guy Nick Saban made cry on the practice field.

Only four selections even made the roster that year, and give yourself a hand if you said they are Allen, WR Derek Hagan, DT Frederick Evans and DT Rodrique Wright.

Why didn’t they take … ? The weekend off.

10. QB Pat White, West Virginia (2nd round, 2009): The Wildcat was all the rage. Pat White was a quarterback who sure could run.
What could go wrong?

Dolphins fans began to get the answer early in training camp when White’s passes clanged off the goal posts.

His NFL career ended with zero completions in five attempts, although his QB rating of 39.6 makes us wonder how many points they must give for guys who spell their name correctly.

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About the Authors

Jason Lieser has covered sports in Chicago, New Orleans and now South Florida

Joe Schad is a sports reporter for The Palm Beach Post who covers the Miami Dolphins. He previous covered sports for ESPN, the Orlando Sentinel and Newsday.

After 19 years as a sports writer, copy editor and assistant sports editor at The Miami Herald, Hal Habib joined The Palm Beach Post's sports department in 1998. Areas of coverage range from the Olympics, Kentucky Derby and Super Bowl to local sports.